Dark Nights, Darker Days
by Higuchimon
Summary: [one-shot, Yu-Gi-Oh Pairings Challenge, Season 11, Round 5: Yami no Malik x Anzu/Anzu x Yami no Malik, Thornshipping, au: vampire] In a world without sun or stars or moon, where vampires walk the earth, Anzu and her friends hunt the undead. And now, one of those newly turned hunts Anzu.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.  
**Fandom:** Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters  
**Title:** Dark Nights, Darker Days  
**Romance:** Yami no Malik x Anzu  
**Word Count:** 10,403||**Status:** One-shot  
**Genre:** Supernatural, Romance||**Rated:** R  
**Challenge:** Yu-Gi-Oh Pairings, Season 11, Round 5, Yami no Malik x Anzu, Thornshipping  
**Notes:** I refer to **both** Malik and Yami no Malik as "Malik", since they really are the same person. But you should know when the change hits. This also takes place in an AU. The details of the AU will become clearer with reading.  
**Warnings:** Vampirism, violence, implied sex  
**Feedback:** All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
**Summary:** [one-shot, Yami no Malik x Anzu/Anzu x Yami no Malik, Thornshipping, au: vampire] In a world without sun or stars or moon, where vampires walk the earth, Anzu and her friends hunt the undead. And now, one of those newly turned hunts Anzu.

* * *

Anzu kept herself hidden in the shadows of the alleyway, fingers wrapped around one of her wooden stakes. She tried not to breathe very hard; the vampires would hear her if she did. They might hear her anyway, but there wasn't any reason to make it easy for them. She wanted to take a very deep breath; the longer she stayed out here, the longer she felt as wound up as a top, ready to snap at anything or anyone that moved too closely to her.

She kept her back pressed against the brick wall, refusing to think about what might be getting on the back of her jacket. She could wash it. Washing was mandatory anyway; a vampire's sense of smell could pick up odors from distances nearly twice that of a human's. Anything that would give the demons warning that a hunter was in the area couldn't be allowed.

She didn't dare move more than the minimum and she wanted, no, needed to rub her eyes to get some of the tiredness out of them. They needed at least one more kill to count this as a good expedition, and she hadn't heard any of the signals that indicated Jounouchi and Honda were ready to head back to the safe house.

Vampires. She didn't shake her head, but she wanted to. Five years earlier, she would've laughed at the very thought. Vampires came from movies and books; they weren't anything that she or anyone else had to deal with in real life.

Now they were something that they all had to deal with on a regular basis. The alternative to nights of vampire killing didn't bear thinking about. If 'nights' even was the right term. She couldn't be certain anymore.

Footsteps echoed faintly through the darkness and Anzu straightened up, looking ahead. It wasn't a vampire; those beasts didn't make any sound no matter how they moved. She didn't think it would be Jounouchi or Honda, either. They tried being quiet, though no human could compare to a vampire's skill at stealth. This sounded like an ordinary person.

What in the world was someone ordinary doing this time of night, in this kind of area? It wasn't as if no one knew vampires existed but a chosen few. Before everything collapsed, it had been all over the news. You'd almost have to have lived in a cave to have missed it, and Anzu wouldn't have put any bets on a cave-dweller having missed out on it.

Whoever it was came into view, strolling along as calmly as if vampires never existed. He wasn't local; she knew enough of the local humans to recognize them by sight, if not name, and she'd never seen him before. She would've recognized dusky bronze skin, wild blond hair, and the way he strolled along with hands stuck in his pants and paying _no_ attention to anything around him. If he'd had anything that resembled a weapon, she would've probably thought he was a hunter like herself, trying to lure vampires in so he could slice them open, but with that shirt of his, she couldn't see where he'd hide one.

She managed not to groan out loud, though she wasn't entirely certain of how. How could someone be this genuinely _stupid_? Was he asking to get killed?

As soon as the stranger came up to where she remained in the shadows, he stopped and looked at her, one eyebrow quirking upward. "Are you waiting for someone or just there for the view?"

Anzu paled at once, fingers tightening harder on the stake, ignoring the splinters that dug into her gloved hand. She knew she wasn't invisible here, but the few people who'd passed her guard spot hadn't seen her there. How had he?

He took a step closer, a light smile on his lips. "Is there something wrong?" A sudden frown creased between his eyes. "Oh, you're waiting for a vampire, aren't you?"

"Quiet!" Anzu hissed the word out between her teeth sharply. "What are you even doing here?" She didn't want to talk to him and give away her position, but she doubted he'd just go on without question.

"Just out for a walk." He shrugged, a liquid kind of movement that she'd seldom seen before. "That's still allowed, isn't it?"

She breathed a fraction harder. Maybe his presence would cover up her own, if any vampires really were in the area. She didn't like thinking of him, or anyone else, like that, but hard times made for hard people. "Only if you want to take a chance on getting your throat torn out."

"I eat plenty of garlic. They won't bother me." He shrugged thoughtfully once again. "Malik Ishtar."

She had to believe he was insane. Who went around introducing themselves to strangers these days, especially in the first two minutes of having met them?

"We still don't know if garlic even works." So far as she knew, it might even work in the opposite direction, bringing vampires closer because of the smell instead of keeping them away. If nothing else, it told a vampire where you were. "You should get somewhere safe."

"What about you?" He rested one hand on his hip and eyed her with pale violet eyes. "Are you just going to stand here all night waiting to stake someone?"

Anzu didn't even want to think about that. She kept herself focused on more important matters for now. "There's an open safe house about two streets over that way." She jerked her head off to the east. Open safe houses didn't turn up very often and more than once a vampire disguised as a human managed to get inside and wreak havoc. Kotsuzuka was pretty good at identifying vampires, so this one had stayed open longer than most. "It's a good place if you don't have anywhere else to go."

"And if I do have somewhere else to go?" He didn't move, keeping his attention focused on her. The more he spoke, the more she began to realize that he couldn't be local for other reasons: his accent. She hadn't heard one like it before, but while he spoke nearly perfect Japanese, some of how he shaped the words recollected another language.

"Then you should go there. This isn't a good area to hang around unarmed."

After all the time she'd spent training and actually fighting vampires, Anzu's instincts were now honed and sharp as a razor's edge. With how silent and deadly a vampire could be, only those who could gain that edge could stay alive. She didn't even think about what she was doing, but before her words died off, she whirled around, her stake raised only for a few moments before she slammed it forward into whatever passed for the heart of the beast coming up behind her.

The one thought through her mind as the vampire staggered back was that it wasn't anyone she knew. That happened more often than she wanted to think of it. Memories of the look on Honda's face when he'd had to finish off Miho rang clear in her mind. She pushed it back for the moment; she could mourn old friends when she wasn't fighting.

Quick as could be, she whirled, pulling another stake from the quiver underneath her jacket. Vampires seldom traveled alone and she wasn't at all surprised to see another of the pale-faced blood drinkers dropping down, silent as the grave, behind Malik. She started to pull her arm back to throw the stake, when Malik turned on one heel, hand going up underneath his shirt and pulling out a dagger. Even faster than she could've managed, faster than anyone she had ever seen kill a vampire, he swiped his blade through the vampire's neck, sending the head rolling off into the shadows.

The body remained there for only a few moments before it collapsed into a pile of dust, scattered by the night breeze. Malik glanced down at his knife before he tugged a polishing cloth out of one pocket and began to clean the blade off.

"Why didn't you tell me that you're a hunter?" Anzu managed to snap the question out once her heart calmed down from the inevitable adrenaline rush.

"Because I'm not." Malik tucked both cloth and knife back out of sight. "I'm out for a walk. I told you that. I'm not here to kill every vampire I come across."

Anzu couldn't make up her mind on if she wanted to smack him for being an idiot or ask if he wanted to come back to their safe house. Whatever he said, someone like him could be a very valuable addition to their team. The more people they could have on patrol, the better, and they had more than enough room ever since …

Well, they had enough room. That was it.

"Anzu!" Human voices came up out of the shadows, followed by Jounouchi and Honda. Both of them had their own daggers in hand, though no stakes visible.

"We lost a couple and I think they were heading this way. Seen anything?" Honda caught his breath first, giving Malik a cautious look as he did so.

"We took care of them." Anzu reported. She didn't put her second stake away; the only time she wanted to walk without some kind of a weapon in hand was when she was already inside the protected walls of the safe house. Sometimes not even then. "Jounouchi, Honda, this is Malik. He finished off one of them himself."

Her two childhood friends looked the other man up and down, hints of distrust written across both faces.

"Hunter?" Jounouchi asked at last, not entirely with respect, but not insulting either.

"Traveler." Malik corrected. "I won't be in town very long."

All three stared at that; the idea of traveling for sheer pleasure wasn't one they'd heard in some time. "Why not?"

"I'm looking for someone." Malik tilted his head back and stared up at the dark skies overhead. Not a single star twinkled up there. No one could remember when they vanished, only that night by night, the shadows grew thicker. "If I find them here, I might stay, though."

"Who is it?" Anzu found herself asking. She doubted it was anyone that she knew, but it wouldn't hurt to check.

"The person who caused all of this." Somehow, without any of them seeing his hand moved, his dagger lay in his hand once again and he brushed the tip of his tongue across it. Anzu refused to move an inch; best not to show fear in front of someone whose sanity might be questionable.

Of course, it wasn't as if any of them were unshakeable monuments to sanity as it was anyway.

"What makes you think anyone _is_ responsible?" Honda asked, lips tightening a little.

"Because someone has to be." Malik laughed a low laugh, one that had nothing that resembled genuine humor in it. Madness wrapped all around it instead. "When I find them, I'll make them bleed until all the vampires come, and then I'll kill all of them."

Anzu tensed a fraction more and took a step forward. "Malik?" Vampires were bad enough. They didn't need someone insane (more so than any of them) making everything even worse.

He jerked his head toward her and for a moment she wondered if this were even Malik at all somehow. Pupils grown much smaller, his features twisted into a horrid mixture of scowl and smirk, and he lifted his knife as if ready to strike.

Then, in that one moment, he stopped and blinked, shaking his head, all of the tension flowing out of him. "What is it?" All three of them stared at Malik as if they'd never seen anything so confusing in their entire lives. Anzu couldn't speak for her friends, but she thought he at least ranked in the top five of 'confusing'.

"Are you all right?" Jounouchi shifted forward, ready to throw himself in between the two of them if he had to. She could read that in the set of his shoulders and the way he kept staring down at the stranger.

"Of course I am." Malik eyed his knife as if he had no idea of how it ended up in his hands, then slipped it back out of sight. "I need to go."

Anzu considered inviting him back, even knowing how dangerous it was. Before she could even begin to open her mouth, he was gone, fading into the shadows with nearly the same amount of stealth as a vampire.

"Damn." Jounouchi stared after him as well. "You know, never thought I'd say this, but he is _weird_."

"He's good with that knife, though." Anzu felt just a little obliged to point that out. "He took out that vampire in one hit." Cutting through living dead flesh wasn't easy, even for the strongest among them, and Malik did it like it was nothing. The amount of strength implied by that made her want to have him on their side even more.

Honda tapped both of them on the shoulders. "You can drool over your new boyfriend later, Anzu—ouch!" He glared at her, rubbing his arm where she'd smacked him. "What was that for?"

"You know." Anzu didn't date people. Not after what happened with Yuugi. The whole thought of it hurt too much, and she knew her friends knew it.

"Well, let's get out of here. I'm getting hungry." Jounouchi didn't pay any attention to what either of them said, setting off toward their place as quickly as his long legs would manage.

Anzu rolled her eyes at the both of them and followed, still keeping part of her attention out for any vampires. Just because they'd decided to pack it in for now didn't mean that the vampires felt the same way. More than one person ended up dead or worse because they stopped being on guard once they weren't actually hunting.

* * *

Malik didn't go very far after he left the strange group of hunters. He only turned down the next street, making certain it wasn't the one that led to the open safe house that the girl had mentioned. He sagged against a streetlight, breathing harder now, and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.

_Not again._ He fought hard to keep his awareness of what was going on around him. He didn't like fading away like he had for those few moments, and it kept happening more and more frequently.

It took him several minutes to get himself calmed down enough to even think about moving onward. He refused to go near any safe houses; there'd already been too many incidents in the past. Vampires weren't the only monsters in this world.

_I could've had fun with her._ The words slipped through his mind, the voice his own, darker and more twisted, and Malik did his level best not to recognize it, much less pay attention to it. Ever since Rishid…

No. That was something else he didn't want to think about. Focusing on it too much made those blackouts happen even more often than before.

Besides, it was better that he didn't associate too much with any hunters. The times he'd tried it before always ended the same way, with the hunters dead, sliced open in more ways than he could count, and him in the middle of a circle of dead bodies.

_They would've killed you. What are you complaining about?_

Ignore. Ignore. _Ignore_.

Slowly he pulled himself to his feet. He'd told that girl, Anzu, at least that much truth: vampires didn't bother him. He doubted it had anything to do with the garlic, but he'd looked right into their eyes and they'd only smiled and left for other parts.

_They know their better._

Malik swallowed and shoved the voice into the very depths of his mind, teeth clenched. He did need shelter. He needed something to eat. With vampires stalking everywhere, he at least had plenty of options for places to hole up and scrounge some food. For now anyway. It wasn't as if people were producing much more food these days. Sooner or later…

Well, sooner or later he'd end up dead, and then he wouldn't have to worry about it.

_Or I could take care of it._

Malik grit his teeth and stalked down the street. He could see a few vampires moving here and there, well-hidden by the shadows. At most they gave him a brief glance, but that was all. Sometimes he wondered if it wouldn't be better to just be one of them.

He could already feel the voice's smug response and he made certain not to hear it. He couldn't think of anything he wanted to hear less.

He wasn't sure if it was worse when that other began to muse about that girl and what it would be like to…

With any luck, he'd never see her again.

* * *

Anzu sank down on the couch, sitting carefully to avoid it shifting too much under her. Otogi had picked it up from a junkyard somewhere and it wasn't in the best shape. But it at least provided a place to sit while she was eating.

"What about tomorrow?" Jounouchi asked as he started to shovel down his bowl of hot stew. "We can head over that way." He jerked his head to indicate one direction they hadn't done a lot of hunting in. Once it had been the business district. Now it was several streets of burnt out buildings that served as a nest for hundreds of vampires.

Otogi leaned back on a different sofa, a thoughtful tilt to his head. "It's pretty dangerous over there. I've heard they've been gathering. I mean, more than just sitting there waiting for a stupid human to come over for lunch."

"So we should go break it up before there are too many of them." Jounouchi pointed out.

"There are probably already too many of them." Anzu reminded him. "Most of the people who used to work there are still there. You know what else is there. Was there."

Jounouchi's lips thinned and he stared down into his bowl. Anzu hated even bringing it up but it was better than letting him forget that the remains of KaibaCorp still sat in the center of the business district. No one had seen either Seto or Mokuba since all of this began, nor did Anzu especially think that they would, at least not without needing to put a stake into them.

"We can check out the general area, at least." Honda put in, trying to strike some kind of a balance between them. "There are so many of them there that taking out ten or twenty shouldn't be a problem and we can get an idea of what it's like."

None of them had set foot in that area for months. With any luck, the vampires wouldn't know they were coming and wouldn't be ready to defend themselves. It wasn't the worst idea she'd ever heard, and she nodded agreement.

"So, you said you met someone while you were out there?" Otogi glanced in her direction and Anzu held back a tinge of a flush to her cheeks. Or tried to, anyway. It wasn't easy.

"Not like that! He was just someone passing through, that's all." For all she knew, he'd already been fed upon and lay in a ditch somewhere. If he wasn't walking the darkness, looking for people of his own to prey upon.

"He cut off a vampire's head in one strike." Jounouchi said, making a visible effort to pull himself away from whatever dark thoughts slid through his mind. "Or that's what Anzu said, anyway."

At Otogi's quirked eyebrow, she nodded, shrugging in the same moment. "If he's kept himself alive this long, he has to have some experience, right?"

"I suppose." Otogi allowed that much, twirling a few strands of hair around one finger as he considered matters. "Everyone be careful when you go out. I'll make you new wards to carry."

"Thanks." A ragged sort of chorus answered him, then all fell silent as they worked on cleaning their bowls down to the bottom. Leftovers were a matter of the past. No one knew when the food would run out and they didn't dare waste anything even now.

Once finished, Anzu made her way to her room, looking around it as she closed the door. It wasn't anything like the room she'd had once upon a time, bright and airy and open to the sun and the sky. There hadn't been a sunrise in years, at least not one that they could see. Even if there had been, her room would still have been dark.

This room had no windows. Air got in and out through slits high in the walls and that was it. A futon on the floor, a small closet filled to the brim with various outfits she wore to hunt, and a small stand that held nothing but an oil lamp comprised the rest of her furniture.

A far cry from her childhood room that held a television and half a dozen or better electronic devices that she'd never even thought about until she didn't have them anymore.

Anzu sank down onto her futon. Otogi would be around in several hours to wake everyone up. Without a clock, he was the one they relied on for mealtimes and when to sleep and how long they slept. She didn't know how he knew, but it all seemed to work out fairly well anyway.

Malik lurked in the dark corners of her mind, though what she really wanted to do was close her eyes and get some sleep. Prowling through a vampire stronghold wasn't something she wanted to do without a lot of rest behind her.

Yet still those few minutes they'd spoken echoed over and over in her thoughts. The way he'd so casually turned from talking to her to slicing a vampire open in a way that some of the hunters she knew would envy. That odd moment when he'd declared what he was actually looking for…

_Someone responsible for all of this?_ It probably sort of made some kind of sense, but she couldn't imagine how anyone would find out who it was. It had started in Domino, they knew that much. That was where the first reports of people feeding on the blood of others came from. No one had believed it at the time, writing it off as the media blowing innocent events out of proportion.

Then the sun stopped shining. Everyone figured it was still there, somewhere, since the world didn't plunge into an ice age, but no light came from the sky, no matter the weather. No sun, no stars, no moon, no natural light at all. Just endless shadows, everywhere, all the time.

If someone had done this on purpose, Anzu couldn't figure out why. What was the point of ruining everything? She couldn't even think of how someone could've done it anyway.

It didn't matter that much, at least not for now. They had to survive, which meant clearing out as many vampires as they could, and for that, she needed to get some sleep. She pushed herself back to her feet long enough to change clothes, and wished, as she did every night, that the other humans out there survived just a little longer.

Including Malik, no matter how crazy she thought he might be.

* * *

Small flickers of firelight cast dancing shadows on the walls around him. Malik hunkered over the tiny fire and tossed the empty can of carrots into a corner out of the way. It wasn't the most satisfying meal he'd ever had, but it at least had put something in his stomach.

_I can think of other food you could have._ Malik set his jaw and rubbed his neck for a few moments. It didn't ache all the time, only when he pushed himself a little too hard. _Stop fighting it._

He wouldn't. He could and did ignore that dark voice and he would never, ever stop fighting the low burn in the back of his throat. He'd fought it this long, since before the sun vanished. He wouldn't stop any time soon.

_You will, sooner or later. You can't resist it forever._

There were times when Malik wondered if he would've had to put up with this nightmare if the sun still shone and the vampires didn't walk the world. If he'd had an ordinary life, growing up with his sister and his brother. He wanted to think that he would have, that this monstrosity only existed in his mind because of what had happened.

He missed the sun. The idea of living in the shadows forever set his stomach to twisting into knots.

"Hello there, brother." Malik's head shot up at the words spoken in an unfamiliar voice, one hand reaching behind him to the knife he kept underneath his shirt. From the darkness there stepped three figures, two of which he recognized. His heart sank at the sight of them, but he kept most of his attention on the one in the front.

"I'm not your brother." He didn't pull his knife yet, waiting to see what they wanted. He wanted to think he could attack them if he had to, but he already knew better. He'd tried once before. All he'd gotten out of it was a bite to the neck and having to run before it got worse.

"Aren't you? My blood flows through your veins as much as it does through theirs." The stranger gestured to the two with him. Malik still refused to look. These creatures weren't Isis and Rishid by any means. They were only beasts who bore their faces.

"What is it you want?" He scrambled to his feet and looked for a wall to set his back against. He refused to fight without being certain one could sneak up on him if he could help it.

"To free you from your silly resistance." The stranger stared at Malik, his eyes glimmering with a hard, amused edge to them. "Fighting this hard, all this time, and for what? What are you winning by this?"

"Humanity. _My_ humanity." Malik spat the word out, taking another step back. As if he needed any other reason, or any reason at all. Why would he want to exist as an undead abomination?

The stranger stepped closer, gesturing for Isis and Rishid to stay where they were. Malik's heart twisted even more when they obeyed. Who _was_ this creature that they'd listen without a breath of opposition?

He'd work that out later, he decided, and brought his knife around as quickly as he could, slamming it into the creature's stomach and pulling upward. He'd used that same move before on other vampires and it usually distracted them long enough so he could behead them. This one, however, didn't even move. He only smiled and with a casual strike knocked Malik's knife out of his hand.

"What-" Malik didn't have time to say more than that before Rishid and Isis stood beside him, gripping his shoulders far too strongly for him to even think about moving as they forced him down to his knees.

"Silly boy. You have no idea of who I am." The creature that stood before him smiled, or at least moved his lips upward. The only evidence of Malik's attack was a tear in the creature's shirt. The skin underneath remained smooth and unmarked. "Not that it's going to matter to you soon."

His lips wrinkled back, revealing two sharp fangs that Malik would've sworn hadn't been there before. Malik shook his head as hard as he could, attempting to squirm in his captors' hands and getting nowhere.

"Isis. Rishid." He knew it wouldn't do any good to appeal to them. He'd tried it once before and all that he'd gained had been a furious pain in his neck and a voice that demanded he give in to the darkness.

Neither of them moved a muscle as the stranger gripped Malik by the chin and forced his head to the side.

"I hear you taste delicious. I think I should find out."

Sharp pain racked all through Malik as the fangs bit into his neck, followed almost at once by a rich red wave, a mixture of pain and pleasure that brought back memories he'd tried to forget forever. This was even worse now, especially as all the strength drained out of him and he found himself on his back, concrete cold and clammy against his skin now.

He couldn't fight what they wanted to do to him, not any more, not with that scorching hot blood dripping into his mouth even as his own was drawn out of him. All of his resistance melted away, replaced first by a passionate wave of desire and then by the irresistible desire to feed on others. He closed his eyes and let himself go. What was the point of fighting? What difference would it make in the end?

_Yes._ He knew that voice. He'd always known it, and hated it for all that it was, the deepest part of his darkest soul. The one that had spoken to him many times in the last year, and which he'd denied because it said what he didn't want to hear. That he should give in. That he should take the blood. That he should be one of them.

It was his own voice, raised moments later in a deep cry of passion and need.

"Welcome home, brother." He knew that voice too. How could he not know his own sister? He smiled up at Isis, his vision clearing enough so he could see her and Rishid both, and he could feel his own fangs in his mouth now.

"Sister." Slowly he pulled himself to his feet. The pain in his neck was no more. There was a pain in his throat, however, a dark dryness that made him want to find a human and sink his fangs into their neck and take what was rightfully his.

He knew who the stranger was now: their sire, the father of the vampire people. Malik wondered if he could find a way to destroy him and take that power for himself. Perhaps…but not just yet.

"I'm hungry." He licked his lips, wishing he knew more of the area. That girl, Anzu, she'd mentioned a safe house. Perhaps he could find a snack there.

"We brought you dinner." Isis flickered away from him; a human wouldn't have seen her move, but now Malik's eyes were so much more than merely human. She came back only moments later with a young human struggling in her grip.

Malik licked his lips, then looked toward the vampire master. "Would you like to share?"

His own blood still stained the master's lips. "No. Enjoy him on your own. You'll need it all."

Malik didn't wait another moment, but yanked the boy away from Isis and bit down hard. He'd never tasted anything so delicious as this blood coursing down his throat, quenching the thirst as nothing else could.

Thoughts of another whispered through his mind, however. Once he'd finished his draining, he straightened up and wiped his mouth clean.

"Someone is on your mind." The master wasn't asking. Malik didn't like the idea of someone prodding around his mind, but he couldn't protect himself, not at the moment. He would have to learn how to do that.

"Someone I met before." He wondered who else that Anzu might have in her little coterie of vampire hunters. Perhaps enough to feed him for several days. "Hunters."

The master chuckled as he began to turn away. "Hunt them, then, if you want more."

Malik echoed the laugh, imagining the looks of fear and pain on Anzu's face when she realized what he was now. For all that they'd spoken for only a few moments, he liked the idea of hearing her screams. They would echo with a delicious terror unlike any he'd imagined. Those silly humans with her would be no protection from him. And he could imagine other kinds of screams from her as well. He'd seldom bothered with lovers of any gender before, but now he burned with the desire to feed from her, and much more. He would have her.

"I'll see you again." He nodded to Isis and Rishid for only a few moments. It was just as well they'd fallen before he had, he decided as he moved off into the shadows. If they'd remained human and he hadn't, that could've been troublesome.

What was done was done, however. The Ishtar clan, or what was left of it, was where they belonged: in the darkness.

* * *

Anzu prepared everything she needed for their trip carefully. Extra stakes, each one sharpened to a razor's edge, her hair trimmed short to avoid giving any vampires a place to grab her, her clothes tight enough so she wouldn't trip over anything if she had to run, and her stomach full to avoid sounds of hunger. Remaining silent was the name of the game.

"Ready?" Otogi leaned in the door and she nodded, heading out with brisk steps. Jounouchi and Honda stood there as well, just as ready as she was. Otogi followed her, and as soon as they all stood there, he began to hand out small disks.

"Wards?" Honda asked, turning the one he was given over in one hand. Anzu could feel the tingle that came from a fully charged ward in hers and slipped it over her head to hang over her chest. "They're stronger than the last batch."

"You're going into really dangerous territory. You need something extra." Otogi kept every one of their weapons warded, though he very seldom gave them personal wards. "Remember, keep them on you and there's not much they can do to you."

"Aside from breaking our necks." Jounouchi muttered, tucking his own around his neck.

"Better that than the alternative." Anzu had long made up her mind that she'd rather be dead than a vampire. The idea of going around feeding off of other people for the rest of eternity made her sick to her stomach. "Everyone ready?"

Leaving Otogi behind to watch over the house, the three of them trooped out. Anzu refused to look back and wonder when, or if, they'd return to it safely. Many times already one of their number had failed to do so. Atemu, Yuugi, Bakura, Mai, Shizuka…all of them gone in one way or another.

Gritting her teeth, she moved along with Jounouchi and Honda, heading directly to the business district. She wondered what time it was; she'd lost her watch ages earlier, and hadn't yet bothered to get a replacement.

"Hey there." All three of them stopped in their tracks at the suddenly spoken words, weapons of all kinds raised. The moment Anzu realized who it was, she relaxed, just a fraction.

"Malik." She blinked a few times, trying to reconcile what she was seeing to what she recalled he'd worn when they'd met. _Why is he wearing a cape?_ That was practically offering oneself to the vampires, giving them something to grip and pull you closer to them by. And his hair? What on Earth had he done to his hair? It looked a lot like he'd stuck his finger into a light socket.

"So nice to see you again." All of his attention focused on Anzu, giving Jounouchi and Honda only the barest of looks. "Hunting again?"

"What's it to you if we are?" Jounouchi asked, eyes narrowed as he shifted his feet to get into a better attack position. "I thought you were just passing through."

"I was. I just haven't finished passing yet." Still he never took his eyes off Anzu. "I found out something I thought you'd all find interesting, though."

"What's that?" Anzu couldn't help but ask. Had he found a nearby nest they could take care? She wasn't stupid enough to think they could clean out _all_ of the vampires in this area in the space of a few hours. Only a blaze like what had once raged through here could eliminate them all and there was very little left here that would burn with what they could use to start a fire.

"I found out who started all of this. The one who created the first vampire and who blotted out the sun."

All three froze. Anzu managed to speak first. "Who? Where?" If they could find whoever that was and get them to undo it…the world could go back to normal, wouldn't it?

"I'm not sure about his name." Malik shook his head, lips quirked up. "I only know where he is. He's very heavily guarded, though."

"Then we'd all better go." Jounouchi flicked one finger at Otogi's ward around his neck. "We're already suited up for fighting anyway."

Malik eyed the charm without a single hint of being impressed. "Then let's go. Those should keep most of the vampires away."

"They always have before," Honda grunted as Malik started off down another street, one that Anzu somewhat remembered as leading directly into the heart of the business district: more or less where they hadn't wanted to go.

She caught up to Malik in a few quick strides. "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course I am. I followed one of them here earlier and I heard a nest of them talking." Malik shrugged, sliding his pale violet gaze toward her once again, then moving his attention briefly over toward Jounouchi and Honda. "They mentioned the creator as being Kaiba."

Anzu almost tripped over her own feet. Jounouchi wasn't much better off. "What? I thought you said you weren't sure about the name."

"I'm not. That's what they said." Malik kept going, not waiting for them to catch up. "How should I know if they were telling the truth or not?"

From the moment Jounouchi got himself on his feet again, he kept up a quick and harsh litany of insults toward the former business tycoon, most of which involved how far into him he wanted to shove a stake and through which bodily orifices. Anzu didn't pay much attention to it; she'd heard it all before, though not quite with this much venom.

If Kaiba was the one genuinely responsible, then their target was more than likely the KaibaCorp building itself. That was probably the best kept of them all, even after the fire that seared through this area. Kaiba made certain his buildings had been protected against fire back in the day. It hadn't stopped a lot of people from dying or vampires from being incinerated, but it had preserved at least some of the structure itself.

"How did you find that out and get away?" Anzu wanted to know. Malik wasn't even from around here. How'd he even known where to go?

"I was very lucky." He laughed, a low sound that didn't have a great deal of humor to it and which sent a faint chill down her spine. It reminded her strongly of what he'd sounded like when they'd last met and he'd insisted that he would find the first vampire. "I just barely got away as it was."

Anzu glanced over her shoulder to where Jounouchi and Honda followed, both of them looking back at her. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was going on that she didn't entirely understand. But leaving wasn't an option, not yet. Even if they couldn't destroy Kaiba, they could still get rid of some of the vampires, and find out if he being the one who'd started it all was actually true.

_I wish we had phones. I'd like to call Otogi and see what he thinks about all of this._ He knew more about the supernatural than anyone she'd met short of Bakura, and Bakura wasn't available anymore.

Far too soon, or so it felt to her, they stood on the outskirts of the business area. Dark figures swept through the streets ahead and Anzu tensed at the sight of them.

"Vampires." What else could they be, walking around here with such confidence?

"This is where we split up." Malik gestured to Jounouchi and Honda. "Take the long way around until you get to the back of the KaibaCorp building. Most of the vampires don't bother to go that way. Anzu and I will go this way." He jerked his head around to the other side. "We'll meet you back there as soon as we can get through all of them."

Honda didn't move an inch. "Why not stick together?"

"Because vampires don't do that." Malik spoke in the tones of one trying to explain something to an idiot. "They stick in small groups of two or three at the most, if they're not alone. There are _four_ of us."

"I can count."

"Then if you can think, do it. Vampires can tell when something is wrong. They're not stupid. Your charms might protect you for a while, but not forever. We split up to get to the back entrance, meet up there, then go all the way up to the penthouse. We'll find who we're looking for up there."

Anzu shook her head slowly. "If we're careful, we can all stick together and make it. If any of them get too close, we can take care of them." She didn't want to get separated from her friends, even for the best of reasons.

Malik's lips pressed together for a moment before he shrugged. "If that's the way you want it. Let's go." He started off the way he'd indicated for her and him, the other three following along cautiously.

Anzu fingered her amulet, wondering just how much protection it could actually give. Otogi had tried to explain how the wards worked to them all before, but all she'd managed to get out of the explanation was that they kept vampires looking away from them and they only worked so long as the wards were kept on their bodies.

For something meant to protect them against hordes of undead bloodsuckers, it didn't seem that impressive. Otogi carved each of them himself, making them all unique to each person who needed to wear it. She tucked it deeper beneath her shirt. Of anything she could tolerate losing, her ward was second only to her weapons.

Perhaps the wards did better than they expected, since no vampire so much as looked at them as they made their way through the dark streets. Trash blew here and there, pushed along by dry winds that moaned through the burnt out shells of buildings. Anzu caught sight of Jounouchi out of the corner of one eye and wasn't surprised to see his lips tight and head down a fraction. Every move he made was designed so he wouldn't have to look around and see exactly where he was.

The only thing that marked where they were was a sign, mostly worn away after no care for all this time, but which did read clearly enough for them to know they were now behind KaibaCorp. Even fewer vampires lurked around here, if possible.

"The elevator's not going to work." Jounouchi pointed out as they slid closer to what had been a maintenance door, which now hung off its hinges. "And that's a lot of stairs."

Malik shot him a quick look. "Did you have something else to do?"

"We can fight about this some other time." Anzu interposed herself, looking from one of them to the other. "The sooner we get this done, the better." She didn't like that they hadn't encountered even one curious vampire. The wards explained it, but it still bothered her more than anything. Something was just off about all of this.

Rusted metal steps rose up into the shadows above them. Malik took the lead, each foot set carefully to avoid making noise. Anzu followed after, moving with just as much caution, as did Honda and Jounouchi. This entire building had vampires everywhere, she suspected, and if they made too much noise, it could well be the end of them.

No one dared to breathe a word, and Anzu tried her best not to breathe at all, until they reached a broad landing. Two openings led off from it, other than the one they came through. Stairs could be seen beyond both of them, one set going up and the other going down. Broken shards of metal, glass, and soot-darkened wood thrust up in random places, remains of the long ago disaster. Jounouchi beckoned Honda over to the one that led downward, both of them peering through the opening.

"What are you doing?" Malik hissed the question out, keeping his voice as low as he could. "Do you want to stir up a nest?"

Jounouchi lifted his head up, and Anzu could see his lips starting to form an answer. He never had a chance to say it, since as he moved back, the cord his ward charm hung from around his neck caught on one of the glass shards, nearly severing it in one moment. He started to reach to press it closer to himself, but before he could, a small pale hand reached from the darkness and wrapped unbelievably strong fingers around Jounouchi's wrist. Another hand appeared, seizing the cord and pulling it off before yanking him out of sight. Honda yelled harshly, a wordless cry of rage, and followed, stake pulled out from under his jacket.

Anzu could barely begin to shift her weight to join them when Malik seized her by the wrist, and a huge steel barrier slammed down in between her and her friends.

"Jounouchi! Honda! What's going on!?" Anzu didn't care about being quiet now. If vampires came, she could fight back. "Jounouchi! Honda!"

Malik pulled her closer and set one hand across her mouth, glaring at her. "Quiet! You're not doing them any good squealing like that."

Anzu drew in a breath, ready to keep calling no matter what or better, to pound on that blockage until she could knock it down, not caring what Malik had to say about it. His grip tightened around her mouth and he yanked her even closer. "I said, be quiet. If you want to get out of here alive, if you want _them_ to get out of here alive, then shut up and follow me."

Anzu tried to pull herself away but his grip was far stronger than she'd imagined it would be. "Let me go." At least she tried to say that; his grip kept her voice muffled enough that she didn't know if he understood her or not.

"Are you going to keep shrieking?" He must have, since Malik bit off the words, looking more at the shadows around and above than anything else. "You might've already let them know that we're here. Do you think you could kill a few hundred of them?"

She didn't have hundreds of stakes and if she had to use her knife, she knew she'd be overwhelmed sooner or later. Not liking it, but not seeing many other options, she kept her lips tightly shut, and her eyes all on the slab of steel in the way. When she spoke, her voice was tight and controlled and low.

"How did that get there?"

"Looks like they probably had it rigged over the door. If you didn't give us away, then those two will, sooner or later." Malik started toward the stairs that led upward. "If we can finish off Kaiba, we might be able to still fix all of this."

Anzu followed, half because she knew he was right, and half because he still kept hold of her wrist. "You can let me go now." She did her best to phrase it like a command. He was strong. _Too_ strong. Humans shouldn't be that strong, no matter how much they worked out.

He didn't release her, but kept going up the stairs, every footfall as silent as before, though he didn't seem to take as much care as he had earlier. Anzu had to hurry up to keep up with him without being dragged, too distracted by that to try and talk just yet.

"Here." Malik stopped in front of a door, or what had once been a door. Like virtually all of the others in this building, it was now nothing more than an opening. This one had a covering of some kind, though, a hanging that reminded her of a curtain, only not very well made or taken care of.

"What is it?" They weren't at the top; a shattered window revealed that, showing that while they were far from the top, they weren't at the penthouse where Kaiba had once held reign. She _wanted_ him to let her arm go; she needed to get her breath properly and to try to find out where her friends were. She didn't need him to drag her around like this.

"What I was looking for." Still gripping her wrist, he pulled her into the room beyond. He shoved her stumbling across the room, and it took her a moment to recover. A loud thunk brought her head up sharply and she tensed at the sight of a thick oaken door now in between them and the outside. It wasn't hung on the hinges neatly (it couldn't have been, since one of those hinges had been broken off entirely and another twisted far beyond the ability to hold a door), but shoved hard into the opening.

She shook her head in an attempt to clear it, taking a few steps backward as she did, wanting to put as much space as possible between herself and Malik. The room was a little over average size, full of the same kind of junk and trash that every other room here was, as well as a dust covered desk that had once been well-made and fine, but now slumped over on one broken leg, drawers turned out, and gouges that didn't look to have come from anything human.

"Malik?" The only answer she wanted now was to the question of how to get out of there in one piece.

"Silly girl." Her head came up sharply at the sound of his voice. It was still Malik, but deeper, darker, and with much less sanity in it. "You still don't understand, do you?"

He stood beside her a heartbeat later, and blood drained from her face as she realized how fast he'd moved. Faster than a human could. Faster. Stronger.

"You're one of them." One hand flew to her quiver of stakes but as fast as she was, he was faster still, seizing her wrist once again and this time she clearly heard a _crack_ as her bones shattered under his grip. She squealed in pain, slamming one knee toward his crotch, but he didn't even move.

His smile held darkness and pain, insanity and fear, but never his own fear: always what he could engender in others. Fangs, sharp as daggers, gleamed in his mouth. Anzu kicked him again, and still he did nothing aside from pulling her close to him. She knew that she'd made contact but she'd kicked trees that reacted more than he did.

"What do you think you're doing?" She tried to squirm around so her ward lay between them. He looked down at it, then wrapped the cord it hung from around his hand and yanked it off of her. The carved disc clattered to the floor. "Hey!"

"That won't protect you against _me_. Those little trinkets can keep away the common rabble." Death's breath blew against her nostrils as he spoke. She wondered how long he'd been an actual vampire. Had she casually spoken to one that first time? Vampires attacked on sight; that was one of the ways they knew who to kill and who not to.

He released her arm, but only so he could wrap his arms around her shoulders and pull her close to him. "Go ahead. Try to hurt me." His smile sent even more fear surging through her. She battered her still good fist against him, while trying to keep her broken one close to avoid more damage to it. All Malik did was keep her held close against him, or so she thought until she heard her stake quiver hit the floor.

Hoping to catch him even a fraction off guard, she shoved herself closer to him and did her best to wrap her own arms around him. Setting her teeth against the pain, she heaved upward, straining to toss him over her shoulder and onto the floor. She'd be able to get her quiver back, finish him off, and be out of there in moments.

He did indeed go over her shoulder, and she scrambled for the quiver almost within moments as he slammed into the floor. Just as her hand closed on it, a booted foot kicked the quiver out of grip and through the window. She whirled around, or tried to, only to have a firm hand close on the back of her neck and find herself lifted upward, staring into Malik's mad violet eyes.

"Anzu, this is our world now. Humans have a place here only as food." His lips curved upward. She couldn't take her eyes off those fangs, so close to her, closer than she'd ever been to a vampire without a sharp piece of wood between them. "Or as slaves."

"I won't be either of those." Anzu hissed as he pulled her as close to him as she could get, the only thing between them a thin layer of clothing. She had to get away. Her stakes were gone, but the desk was still made out of wood. If she could get there, get enough of a piece broken off to use it…

"Oh, I agree." Malik's hand gripped the back of her head and twisted it to one side with deceptive gentleness. "You belong as one of us."

"No!" She battered harder against him, with both hands now, utterly uncaring about the pain that shot through her whenever she hit with her broken wrist. All that mattered was getting out of there with her pulse and breath intact, finding her friend, finding a place to stay far from Domino, at least until they could take the city back.

A sharp pain shot through her as his fangs pierced her neck. She cried out, her eyes closing, hands clutching onto him now, every bit as uselessly as when she'd tried to hit him. She could hear a strange sort of slurping sound and realized vaguely what she heard was his drinking of her blood. Inch by inch her struggles faded, until he laid her down on the floor and continued to feed, tongue caressing against the side of her neck.

For a few moments, she kept on breathing harder and harder, but each breath seemed to take longer to breathe in and breathe out and didn't seem to give her as much air as she needed. She opened her mouth in an attempt to get more air, but instead, something thick and fiery fell drop by drop between her lips. She didn't seem to have the strength to open her eyes again, and with each drop of the blazing liquid, she didn't want to anymore.

"That's right." Malik. That was Malik's voice. She could feel fingers going through her hair. He wasn't biting her neck anymore, but she still couldn't get up. Either couldn't or didn't want to; she wasn't sure anymore. It didn't seem to matter very much. She swallowed the drops, a slow burning lighting her from within the more she had. "Drink it all."

That, she realized, was exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to drink every drop, not just from him, but from anyone else she could find. The whole concept of fighting vampires seemed suddenly ludicrous to her. This was _their_ world. Just as Malik had said, humans had only the smallest of places here.

She could worry about that later, though. Fire lit her veins and she whimpered, wanting something to quench that thirst. "I'm so hungry…" Hungry, thirsty, the word didn't matter. She needed _blood_ and the sooner she gained it, the better.

"I know you do." He helped her up and she stared at him hungrily. He didn't have what she wanted, not in his veins, but she knew he would help her. He was her master. She belonged to him, completely and without question. He would take care of her.

The door slammed open with a sudden crash and Anzu found herself on her feet. _Humans!_ The scent filled her nostrils with an aroma sweeter than any she'd encountered before. She darted forward, hands closing on a pair of broad shoulders, and slammed the human against the wall.

"So glad you two could finally join us." She heard Malik talking behind her, but she paid little attention to his words as she struggled to get her fangs into her captive's neck. He was strong, for a human, but all of his struggles meant nothing to her. She wanted to laugh; was this what Master Malik thought when she tried to fight him off? Nothing that the silly human could do could hurt her. He existed just to serve her needs.

Holding him against the wall with one hand, she finally sank her fangs into his neck and slurped down the blood as it coursed into her mouth. Delicious! Wonderful! Perfect ambrosia! How had she ever thought anything else could compare?

"Anzu! Anzu!" She thought the voice sounded familiar, but no words meant anything to her compared to the glory of her first feeding. She barely even noticed that her formerly broken wrist now worked perfectly again. All she wanted to concentrate on was how good it felt to feed.

Master Malik's hand landed on her shoulder. "That's enough for now." Anzu whined; she hadn't even had nearly enough yet!

"There's more in there!"

"You can finish him later. He's not going anywhere." At his words, she stepped back, wiping her mouth absently, and looked at the other human, her lips tilting downward. "Jounouchi?" She glanced back at her feeding toy. Honda? That was Honda?

"Anzu?" Jounouchi, held against the wall now by Master Malik, struggled as uselessly as she once had. "Anzu, stop it!"

Master Malik gestured to her and she came over, wrapping her arms around him and leaning against him. He ran his free hand over her hair as she did.

"As you can see, she's one of us now. And that treat there is hers." Master Malik didn't even bother to look up at Jounouchi. Anzu's entire body tingled at the thought of being like he was. "You can leave." Jounouchi tensed, his hands balling up, but Master Malik casually backhanded him, knocking him into the wall. The blond slid down it silently, eyes half-glazed and unseeing now. "Or you can stay and join your friend in the larder."

Anzu reached over and tilted Honda's head up with two fingers, staring into his eyes. She couldn't have said how she knew what to do. Instinct guided her, nothing more. His ward wasn't there anymore, which made it all so much easier. "Follow us."

Without another look at Jounouchi, she and Master Malik left the room, heading upward, Honda following as silently as a well-trained pet dog. Master Malik guided her up another few floors, until they came to what had been the office of KaibaCorp's CEO.

Vampires lounged everywhere here, along with some of their pet humans. She noticed the Kaibas there in the shadows, silent as everyone else. There were other faces she recognized as well.

Where the desk had once been there now rested a comfortable, and empty, throne. Master Malik came to a halt before it and Anzu stood beside him, curious as to why he didn't take what was his rightful place.

"Anzu. So pleasant to see you." Where no one had been, now someone new sat on the throne. One slender finger waved, and Master Malik knelt. She followed suit, realizing who it was: the very master of all vampires.

"My lord." This explained so much. She tugged Honda down to sprawl at her feet, but didn't bother to introduce him. She wouldn't have introduced her pet bull to someone, if she'd ever had a pet bull.

"I have matters to deal with elsewhere soon." The master vampire spoke up. "Malik, you shall rule over everyone else while I'm away." His lips twitched. "Or should I say that both of you will rule?"

Anzu could not help a warm tingle at the look her master turned on her. Before her change, the thoughts that swept through the back of her mind would've revolted her. Now she ached in ways she hadn't in some time.

"As you wish, my lord." Master Malik's voice held a tinge of an edge that Anzu didn't recognize. Did he wish to overthrow the master vampire? She'd support him entirely if he did. The master vampire was the master, but Master Malik owned her entirely.

They were both dismissed with a wave of one hand, and Master Malik guided her through the various corridors to a quiet, empty room. Honda followed in a daze, and she ordered him to sit in the corner out of the way, even as her master pulled her into his arms. All thought about him and any of her other friends vanished at the touch of Malik's lips on hers. Passion as strong as that for blood filled her and she gave herself over completely to it.

When she awoke, she would guide the others to the safe houses she knew. Their survival would depend on if Jounouchi made it out in time to warn them. Even if he had, she knew they would find them all, sooner or later.

Vampires had forever.

**The End**


End file.
